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Another question:
Can we improve our lives through learning Kabbalah independently or it is a collective way? I know that there’s a collective aspect to it but is it possible to change apart from how the people around want to advance?
Thanks!
Hello,
There are different levels of spiritual advancement. At first we’re simply studying and absorbing the study materials. This gives us a necessary foundation in this wisdom. After we develop a bit in this style, we’ll begin to feel the need to practice this together with others in a Kabbalistic group.
Will I be limited to advancing at the pace the group is advancing. Not really. Even if I’m a great sage and I’m practicing this wisdom with beginners, by properly appreciating them, I will be able to reach even higher spiritual degrees. In other words, although we practice spirituality together with others in a Kabbalistic group, our advancement depends on our own efforts and not on the group itself.
We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
The essence of week one as I got it is that this corporeal world that we are familiar with, is nothing but a mere outcome of a true reality that’s beyond our inborn perception… it’s like a reflection on a mirror and is not independent.
Now the natural result is that anything we see or experience here is rooted above and beyond the know reasons or causes, right?
I have a question for now:
There are many people around the world who are struggling with seemingly dead-end situations or deadly diseases and many of them have been born with serious sicknesses… now the question is if these kind of dilemmas can be resolved and changed through the wisdom of Kabbalah and through the “inner transformation” that Mr. Kosinec explained in the lesson??
Thank you!
Hello,
Yes, it’s possible. When we study Kabbalah we as if put ourselves in a spiritual incubator which greatly speeds up the rate of our development and correction. So instead of going through these corrections in a slow and painful way, spanning many lifetimes, we can go through these things relatively quickly, in an easier and more internal way.
We’ll learn more about these things in the upcoming lesson on the path of light vs the path of suffering. In the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2011/01/lets-go-with-the-light/
Albert @ KabU
Hello. As I look at this world, I see that all the beings in this realm are interdependent and somehow connected to one another. But Kabbalah so far explains that we, creatures of this physical world have no influence on the spiritual worlds and all the causes are somehow directed from the worlds above, downward to our physical world.
So that means those forces have influence over us, while we have no influence over them. Seems like a one way street. Doesn’t that violate the principal of interconnectedness of existence? I mean what kind of an internet would it be if you were only able to download stuff and no uploads were allowed?
Hi Mehrardi, good question!
Kabbalah as well states that all of humanity is completely interconnected. If so, where is our place of freedom? After all, being interconnected does not mean that I’m free, it’s quite the opposite. Being interconnected means that I’m a cog within a machine. As long as the machine is running, I’m being forced to spin together with everyone else as well. And everything that happens to me is a result of my place in this machine. So where is my freedom? Where is my opportunity to step out and influence this machine? It’s just some food for thought for now, we’ll learn about these things in depth in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
In the card game of Poker, three of a kind beats two pair. Let’s assume the Creator was playing poker and He had two pair and another player had three of a kind who would be the winner?
Hi Ben,
1) It’s an interesting question, but because it’s philosophical, there is no real answer here. We can say in general that all of life is a game with the Creator. This is called “there is none else besides Him”. Meaning that He’s the only source behind EVERYTHING that is happening in life. Every single thought, desire, life event that we experience, it all stems from Him. So how can we possibly beat Him in this game? Only if we unite our points in the heart, will we have the strength to defeat Him.
We’ll learn about this in the more advanced lessons, in the meantime, check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: http://laitman.com/2017/12/there-is-none-else-besides-him/
2) We should keep in mind that Kabbalists are not philosophers, they are scientists. They research the Creator in a purely scientific approach. See my reply (#304863) to Dan below for more details:
Albert @ KabU
Hi Ben,
The game is rigged in such a way that it’s impossible to win against Him directly. But if we unite and ask for His help together, then He will give us His strength with which we can defeat Him.
But I’m not talking about a game of poker rather about our spiritual work. Which is the process by which we correct our egoistic nature to make it similar to the Creator’s nature of love and bestowal. The reason that this game is rigged is because He is the one that gave us our opposite nature. And this nature is completely under His control, so we cannot do anything against it. The only thing we can do is to ask Him to correct our nature for us. This is how we win in this game.
I don’t want to go any further into this example because we don’t have enough of a foundation to understand these things properly. We’ll learn about these things in the more advanced lessons.
Albert @ KabU
Hi Dan,
Not directly. This is because we don’t attain the Creator Himself, but only what we discover in our corrected desires. Let’s put this into perspective to understand it:
Kabbalah divides our research of the Creator into two parts:
The first is His essence (atzmuto in Hebrew). This is He Himself, His point of view, the Creator as an entity separate from the Created beings. We’re incapable of researching this part of the Creator again because our research tools are not built in such a way that we can grasp such things. Perhaps after we finish the process of correction, we’ll discover additional research tools through which we’ll be able to research these things, but until then we limit ourselves and don’t talk about this part of the Creator because we cannot properly research it.
The other part of the Creator is called Bo-Re (Hebrew for Come (Bo) and See (Re)). This is the part of the Creator that we can research and reveal. How do we research this? Through the desire. When we take a part of our desire to receive and correct it in the direction of bestowal, in that corrected desire, we reveal a certain phenomenon, we call this phenomenon the Creator. This is why there are many names for the Creator (in Hebrew), since every time we correct a different part of the desire, we reveal a different aspect of this thing called the Creator.
So all of our understanding of this thing called the Creator (and any spiritual phenomena) is based on what we reveal within the corrected desire. But whatever exists outside of the corrected desire, whatever we don’t grasp, perceive or attain within the desire, whatever is beyond our tools of research, we don’t talk about. We need to keep these limits in mind in order to stay within the realm of science and not venture off into religion or philosophy.
Check out these blog posts from Rav Laitman for more details:
https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
https://laitman.com/2019/04/the-purpose-of-creation/
Albert @ KabU
1 . When we normally perceive a tree, the root will be below the surface level and the branches will be above, but here in kabbalah, it is depicted in different direction as root is the above and the branches are below. Is there any reason behind it?
Hi Saji,
Above and below are symbols. “Above” symbolizes higher levels of bestowal while “below” symbolizes higher levels of reception. So when we say that the roots go from above downwards, it means that this system starts out from the highest levels of bestowal (100% bestowal, 0% reception) and begins to become more coarse, more egoistic, up until it reaches the level of this world (0% bestowal, 100% reception).
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/09/where-is-the-upper-world/
Albert @ KabU
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